Figli di Madre Ignota is a band from Milano, Italy.
A bunch of people who plays an aggressive mix of balkan music, evil polkas, klezmer made out from nothing, mean swings, breathless tarantellas, all made up with surfy electric guitars and a generous
horn section: in two words, SPAGHETTI BALKAN!
It’s music to dance wildly, but with lot of fun! The live show is electric and hilarious, if you can imagine a Balkan brass section playing with a twangy rock combo, you’re close to the atmosphere of their show.
Figli di Madre Ignota literally means “unknown mother’s son”, and it was the legal
definition in Italy of orphans of women who couldn’t or didn’t want to recognize them.
Beyond the obsolete and nowadays not-anymore insult, the band felt the missing
roots of the music as played in the 60es, music that was played live for people to
dance, like Renato Carosone and Fred Buscaglione, humorous, funny and at the same
time cool and exciting.
Starting in the late nineties from the electrification of Italian popular music like
tarantella, they found a natural inspiration in the Balkan brass bands and klezmer
melodies, and like every good self-declared rootless artist, they picked up the spirit of
the dance-or-die and mixed it with a powerful rock combo.